13 Weapon Training

"There is so much for you to learn, last night's beatings were to see where you stood, and how fast you catch on. For your age and never having been in a fight before, you did alright. But you need to watch the shoulders and body of your opponent and not the weapon. Once you see the weapon move and register its trajectory it is already too late to dodge or parry. Tonight, we will take it easy, and we will go through the motions at a pace you can handle. I want you to call out any magic that you think I am about to use. If you think I am about to use magic I want you to say so. If you are correct, I will acknowledge it and not cast the spell. If you fail to recognize my casting, I will continue to cast the spell. If you are incorrect, I will let you know. Is that understood?"

"Yes ma'am."

"When did I ever give you permission to quit calling me commander?"

"You didn't."

Van woke up a half-hour later… again… his face hurt… again. The driver was laughing his ass off… again.

"What were you saying?"

…

"You didn't… Commander."

"That is better. Heal."

Van felt the familiar soothing sensation wash over his body as Lena cast a healing spell on him. One thing he noticed was that she didn't take out her Grimoire to do so. That got him curious.

"Commander, why didn't your Grimoire come out when you cast that spell on me?"

"That is because the Grimoire is there to help you cast higher tier spells. The healing spell I just cast on you is called Lesser heal and it is a Tier 1 spell. If you have the spell memorized, you don't need to use a Grimoire. Plus using a Grimoire negates the need to chant. You just think of the spell that the Grimoire is open to, and it will cast the spell itself if it is a Tier 3 spell and lower. Tier 4 spells through Tier 8 spells still need to be changed even with a Grimoire."

"Why?"

"Sigh… so many questions. Alight here is the general overview. If you have magic, you will get the option to go the Arcane College and get in-depth instruction. But for now, I will explain. The Grimoire is a focus point for your magic. Your magic is like a small lazy stream in the woods, it is always flowing. Now think of spell tiers as different-sized buckets, if you want to fill your bucket from the stream it will take some time, aka the chant. Now your grimoire would be like the damn of a beaver on that river. It keeps your magic from just being wasted. It stores your magic inside of it, like the damn store's water behind it. When you go to cast a low-tier spell you just take what you need, no time needed. If you want to cast a high-tier spell you need a lot of magic, well your lazy stream won't cut it. But if you break the damn and let all the water out at once… That is what a grimoire is. The chant is essentially the process of breaking the damn. The different tiers are how much you break the damn. Lena explained. "I do hope that helps, if it just made you more confused you are just going to have to wait and see if you can go to the College."

"Kinda… I mean, I understand where you are going with that, but I guess I will just wait for the college. Thank you, commander. By the way, may I see you Grimoire?"

"No"

The rest of the day Van and Lena talked about how he should go about fighting with the weapons he chooses. Because even the mages, in this Kingdom, are trained in armed and unarmed melee combat. Every mage carried at least daggers but more often than not they carried a sword or hammer. Van decided that he would train in the spear first as it was the easiest weapon to learn. After hearing his decision on what weapon to focus on, he planned his training for this evening.

When the sun started to set the caravan stopped to make camp for the night Lena had an adventurer that was proficient in the spear come over and demonstrate some basic grip techniques and footwork. Van watched him as he explained the different situations, he would use different styles. Next, it was Vans' turn to demonstrate what he learned.

Van took the basic stance of the body turned at a 45-degree angle from his opponent to present a smaller target and to hide his trailing hand, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, dominate hand and foot behind, both hands on the shaft of the spear, leading hand in an underhand grip, trailing hand in an overhand grip. He then practiced thrusts where he would use his trailing leg to push his body forward and both arms the propel the spear forward in a straight line. He would practice that move for a few minutes then he would practice thrusts where it was just his trailing hand propelling the spear forward. His leading hand would be used to guide tips in the direction he wanted. These were Power Thrust and Quick thrust respectively.

After an hour of practicing those two thrusts he was to learn how to read his opponent's body. He had to stand there in an unarmed ready position where he faced his opponent square on, knees bent, hands out in front of his chest about a foot. The adventurer who was named Li Xao would stand there and thrust the spear at Van. Van had to watch Li's shoulders and hands to see when and where the strike was to happen. Van got hit a lot all throughout his training session. The only thing he was truly grateful for was that the spear was just a blunt stick. When he got hit in the face it was not lethal, but it hurt more than Lena's punches, mainly because Van was awake for all of them.

For 4 hours Van got bloody, bruised, broken bones, and even a shattered face when Lena got tired of watching him fail so she grabbed the pole from Li and stabbed him in the face.

As Van was recovering due to healing magic, she stood over him and said, "That is how fast combat is, if you cant dodge that then you will die. I still have no idea how you managed to dodge that arrow, but it seems like you can't dodge essentially a much larger version of it. Once you are done healing get up, and get ready for watch, you have ten minutes." Lena then threw the pole down onto Vans healing face and walked away. "I will Train you personally tomorrow like we talked about today."

"Li, may I ask you a question?" Van inquired

"Go right ahead."

"Why is she so hard on me? I have had to only wield a weapon once in my life."

"That is why kid, you are alive today only out of luck, we all know what happened, the fact that even though you have been through something like that, you are still fucking around and that really pisses her off." Li stated as he walked away. "Oh, and by the way she is going easy on you, pray you don't see the day where she gets serious against you."

Van got up and grabbed his actual spear and walked to his position for his shift on watch. While he was there he checked his mini map for any threats, and when he saw that it was clear he brought up his stats.

~~ Alice please bring up only the skills I have learned and the new spell. I would like to read the description of what it does.

~~ {Okay here you go.}

Name: Van Augustus

Gender: Male

Level: 26

HP: 110

Strength: 60

Magic: 1

Stamina: 135

Intelligence: 285

Dexterity: 57

Charisma: 30

Luck: 20

Skills: 41

Active: 21

(Power Thrust: Strength)- Doubles thrust damage. Used to penetrate targets armor. Or to deal massive damage to unarmored targets.

(Quick Thrust: Dexterity, Strength)- Strike fast, Strike often. Used to find weak points in targets armor. Or to finish off multiple unarmored opponents quickly.

Passive: 8

Spells: 12 (All Depend on Magic and Intelligence)

(T6-Immolate: AOE)-900 MP- Engulf a 15-meter diameter sphere in scorching flames hot enough to boil iron in seconds. Ensure target distance is far enough away from caster. -Friendly fire isn't-

Skill Points Available: 71

Known Spells: None

Souls Harvested: 4

Required: 3,857,300,829

Souls bettered: 1

Required: 7,714,601,658